Micro-BLAST Project

Jenny Bardwell’s lecture

The Micro-BLAST project has been initiated in Wheeling Park High School, a large, economically-challenged high school in rural West Virginia. The project’s aim is to enhance appreciation of diverse cultures within the school and local community. African-American students at Wheeling Park High School view microaggressions and biases as a recurrent theme in their daily lives. After identifying these microaggressions, students will create alternative scenarios of uplifting dialogue that promote appreciation of diversity. Video scenes will be recorded on their cell phones and broadcast across middle school, high school, and public venues. In addition to creating the videos, the students will qualitatively analyze the impact of viewing these videos on the students and teachers at the high school. Through completion of the Micro-BLAST project, these students will learn leadership, technology, and science research skills. Partial funding is currently provided through a grant from Teaching Tolerance (of the Southern Poverty Law Center) and the Health Sciences & Technology Academy (HSTA), but additional funds could be used to enhance and extend the project.